The Punisher Comic Book Purged From Singapore National Library

Newsarama alerts us to the latest round of censorship in Singapore’s National Library. All copies of comic book The Punisher: Barracuda have been purged from the stacks due to perception that the book is obscene. (The comic book, from Marvel, does have an "explicit content" label on the cover.) According to the New Paperin Singapore:

Comic books depicting nudity, sex scenes, violence and liberal use of expletives. That’s what The New Paper discovered after visiting the comics section of the National Library branch at Ngee Ann City.

This was despite Ms Fiona Goh Lai Kwan having written to the media on
28 May after she found her 12-year-old son reading The Punisher:
Barracuda, a comic book under The Punisher Max series which featured explicit scenes. The boy had borrowed it from the National Library branch in Tampines.

The New Paper found the same comic book on the shelves of the Ngee Ann
City branch the day after Ms Fiona’s letter was published. When we tried to borrow it, the librarian told us that the title was not available for loan and that it was being pulled from the shelves.

Singaporeans hungry for The Punisher: Barracuda can still get it at a local Borders bookstore, but that may change because Singapore has very strict laws governing obscenity.